4. The Virtues of Market Capitalism : Incentives to Honest Labor and the “Invisible Hand” that Enriches the Whole

World Scripture

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it… He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
I take it that it is best to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good… I want every man to have the chance— and I believe the black man is entitled to it—in which he can better his condition; when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him!
Abraham Lincoln⁵¹

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

When I am making money, it is not for myself. Nor am I doing it for my parents. I am doing it for the world… Such is the way we all should live.
(113:52, April 26, 1981)

How powerful it is to have money! How wonderful it is to have money! But who else likes the fact that you have money? If money had true love in it, then everyone would rejoice that you have it. If a person with true love has power, we think it a good thing. Why? Because he uses that power to protect the world and the cosmos. Likewise, we appreciate knowledge in the hands of a person with true love, because he uses it to make our world more comfortable and a better place in which to live. It is the same with money. With true love, we want to use our money for the sake of the world, not for ourselves. All the world’s problems will be solved once we center on true love.
(161:300-01, March 1, 1987)

The gap between North and South, and between whites and blacks, is largely a problem of wealth versus poverty. White people are well-off and black people are poor. There must be some extraordinary movement in which white people sell their possessions and use the money to help the poor black people of the world. If such a movement becomes strong, it will change the whole world. At the same time, there should be a movement among blacks to no longer blame whites for their poverty, but to say, “It is our fault, not the whites’ fault, that we are in poverty. We should work hard to overtake white people.”
(161:19, January 1, 1987)